My dear hubby is in pain. (read carefully...I didn't say he was a pain). He has something wrong with his back. I'll spare you all the details, cause we don't really have any. All I can say is that he has had a place in his back that has given him grief for a few years. In the last few months it has gotten progressively worse. The doctor put him on muscle relaxants and then it got really bad. Last night we ended up in the ER. Cause being able to breathe is good...and that pain was making him hold his breath a lot. And that's not good. And he was starting to scare bubba with his groans.
Thankfully we have a new hospital close to home, and after a short, yet excruciating car ride in which I tried to coach my husband in some male form of lamaze breathing, we made it. First of all, we needed to go through security...in case we needed to catch a quick flight out of there apparently...and I kept making the thing beep. That never happens to me at the real airports. I took off my watch. beep. Took off my bracelet and rings. beeeeep. My poor hubby is standing there in pain waiting for me...take off my wedding rings. beeeep. The man working there (who could have thought of this earlier) said that it was probably my shoes. Well, duh, I always take those off at the non-hospital airports. I think he wanted an excuse to wand me. Cause he did wand me. I guess it gets boring in the emergency room security business. Finally we got through and before long hubby was in some sort of vinyl recliner in a triage room.
That's when we met our nurse. She was nice enough and sarcastic and sort of funny (at least she thought so). She thought joking about everything was a nice way to build pateint rapport...which would be true if laughing didn't make the patient see stars! She also liked to complain in the name of humor and made lots of jokes about her glamorous job. "I'm going to check your urine now...cause it's what I live for. Highlight of my day." She told us stories. My favorite was the one about what her kidney stone sounded like when it clinked in the toilet as she passed it (not kidding at all here). We feel so close to her now. I shouldn't have been surprised when I learned we shared a common New York heritage...we sure can be a charming bunch.
I thankfully don't have a lot of emergency room experience (unless you count multiple trips into the hospital for preterm labor, but that's another story altogether) so I wasn't sure what to expect. Overall it was a pretty calm place. In fact they were awfully calm while my husband was in pain! I know it's normal life for them...but what amazed me is that they totally didn't react or seem to notice when he groaned or yelled out in pain. Didn't mention it. Didn't hurry.
I just wanted them to give him some sort of very strong drugs. We could chat later. Do you not notice him yelling out in pain? Finally, they gave him a mix of IV pain meds. I think it was some combo of tordol, morphine and vodka. Aah...we can rest.
Now, no offense is meant to medical professionals. I know they can become somewhat callous to pain because they spend so much time caring for folks who hurt or are sick. And we are so thankful for those people. I have the utmost respect for nurses in particular. In fact there was a time in our lives when our son was in the hospital that nurses were an absolute lifeline for us. (don't go searching, haven't blogged about that yet...it's coming). I LOVE nurses. I don't know how they do it. But I couldn't believe how easy it was for all those working there to calmly go about their business, calmy continue their conversations with each other and with us about nothing important while hubby was wincing and groaning. It was weird. At least to me. I get why, but it's weird.
Well, I'm happy to report that we got home by 12:30 am, strong drugs in hand. We now wait for hubby to get an MRI and find out what's going on in there. We're guessing it is some sort of large pointy object trapped inside him that gets mad at him if he moves. You would think that would show up in an x-ray...but no. Maybe we should leave the whole diagnosis thing to the experts, huh?
Anyway, if you are so inclined, please pray for my hubby. He's hurting and it's just about all I can think about. Thank you very much. You're dismissed.
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